


The Trick Is to Keep Breathing

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Dark Angel
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-04
Updated: 2008-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-03 21:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I come here to be alone." "So, no different from anywhere else then, huh?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trick Is to Keep Breathing

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to athenejen for the speedy and thorough beta. Title from Garbage.

The latex is cool and smooth against the skin of her back, and Max knows she should feel some kind of excitement at Logan's touch, but all she feels is awkward, nervous. She's all too aware of how easily something could go wrong, and how hard it would be to fix. They can't just sneak Joshua into the hospital anymore and hope for the best, and the thought of the press getting hold of the fact that she carries a deadly infectious disease that can be spread with incidental skin-to-skin contact--no matter that Logan's the only one it can hurt--makes her stomach tie itself in knots.

She shifts away when Logan's gloved hand dips below the waistband of her jeans, fingers lightly brushing her hip. "It's okay," she says, reaching around to zip up her shirt, which makes him back off in alarm. She twists around to give him a smile that she means to be comforting, but which feels completely fake on her lips. "I'll just get Alec to do it." It's what she should have done in the first place. These trips out of Terminal City are dangerous for both of them--for all of them, if she gets caught or Logan gets infected--and she's not sure the risk is worth it anymore. Not sure it ever was, even though it's the only way she gets to see Logan these days.

If she hadn't been looking, she wouldn't have seen it, but his mouth tightens for a second when she mentions Alec's name, lips pressed into a thin, unhappy line, and she remembers how quickly he'd jumped to conclusions about her and Alec the last time. How she'd let him.

"Max--"

"I gotta jet," she says, not letting him get another word out. "You know how it is." She shrugs a shoulder, gives him a smaller, more genuine smile. "If I'm not back before dark, Alec'll send out a search party."

Logan looks skeptical, but lets it lie. "Be careful," he says.

She laughs, wry and indulgent, and shakes her head. "Yeah."

It takes a few minutes for her to shake the tension off, but eventually she lets herself unclench and enjoy the ride. She doesn't get out much anymore--running a city under siege is a lot of work, so she doesn't have much time for anything else, not even Logan--and she misses the wind in her hair and the thrum of her bike between her legs.

Alec is there when she pulls into the garage.

"Something happen?" she asks. "You coming to find me?"

"Something like that," he answers, giving her a crooked half-smile. "You email the pictures to Dix?"

She pulls the camera out of her bag and hands it to him. "Not exactly."

*

"Wash your hands," she says as she pulls one of Alec's rickety kitchen chairs out and straddles it.

"My hands are clean."

Max rolls her eyes. "Who knows where they've been?"

A slow, wicked smile curls across his face, and then he closes his eyes and bites his lower lip as if he's remembering something really good. "Good point."

She huffs and leans forward against the back of the chair, wrapping her arms around it and resting her forehead against the worn wood, ignoring the way her belly squirms at the look on his face. She tells herself the tingle under her skin is nervousness. She trusts Alec, but she doesn't _trust_ Alec, not when she's going to be half-naked and he's going to have a camera.

She can feel him settle in behind her, second chair pulled close, and then he's wrapping her hair around his hand and draping it over her shoulder so he can unzip her shirt. His fingers brush lightly over her barcode, and her breath hitches. She bites her lip, waiting for a smart remark, but for once, he doesn't speak.

The sound of the zipper is loud in the silence, and the air is cool against her skin for a moment before the heat of his breath washes over the nape of her neck. It makes her shiver. His hand rests firmly on her back, and she resists the urge to twist around and look. She closes her eyes, pictures it: long fingers, nails clipped short with a little grease under them, because that shit never comes out, ragged cuticles, because he bites them when he's thinking--something they've all been doing a lot of lately--and they never have the chance to heal.

His fingers skim down the length of her spine, and she shivers again before she makes herself stop. She should say something, tell him to quit fooling around, but she can't seem to find her voice, or the right words. She takes another short, shallow breath and hears the click of the camera, sees the flash in her peripheral vision as he takes one picture, and then another. She concentrates on regulating her breathing, in-out, in-out, eyes closed because she can't keep them open, even though that makes Alec's touch harder to ignore. She can't even pretend he's Logan, can't even bring the memory of Logan's ungloved touch to mind. Did they really touch so infrequently before the virus?

Alec pushes aside her bra strap and she gasps again.

"Easy, Max." His voice is low and deep in her ear. She can smell him, sweat and leather, engine grease and stale coffee, and heat uncurls low in her belly, wet between her thighs.

He follows the lines of runes down to her waist, and then waits, one hand on her hip, as she unzips her jeans and pushes them (and her underwear) out of the way. She can't work up the resolve to brush him off, has to bite back a soft cry of protest when he moves his hand away, already missing the warmth of his touch.

His hand is unsteady as it traces the runes over the curve of her hip, and when his breath hitches softly, something fierce and knowing swells in her chest and between her legs. His fingertips linger on the flare of her hip, in the dip of her spine, and she forces herself not to squirm. She wants to tell him to hurry up and wishes he would take his time.

His voice is hoarse when he says, "Is that it?"

She has to clear her throat before she can answer. "Yeah. I think so." The air is cold on her skin when he moves away, and she says, "Could you--" before she stops and thinks better of it.

He knows what she means, though. Maybe he wants to make it last a little longer, too. "Yeah, okay." He zips her up, warmth of his fingers leading the cold zipper up her back. His gaze lingers on the bare skin of her hip and she flushes, forces herself not to lick her lips. He holds up the camera. "I'll just, uh, take this to Dix." And then he's gone.

She's glad to know he's as unnerved as she is, and it takes her a few seconds to get herself together.

When she's back in her tiny apartment, she sheds her clothes and steps into the shower. The tepid water feels good on her overheated skin and the tile is cool as she leans against it, one foot up on the edge of the tub. She slides her fingers through the slick heat of her cunt, thumb circling over her clit, and grinds down against her hand until she comes with a hoarse grunt, Alec's face flashing behind her eyelids.

She stays under the sluggish stream of water until her breathing is back to normal and she can pretend nothing happened at all.

*

Max can smell the garlic before she's even in the house. Her mouth waters and her stomach rumbles in anticipation. It's been a while since she's had anything but crappy frozen dinners that don't always heat all the way through.

"To roughing it," Logan says, smiling, and offers her a glass of wine. "We may be underground, but we don't have to be uncivilized about it."

Something inside her snaps, and it hurts way more than something that isn't even physical should. "I can't," she says. "I can't do this anymore."

"Max--"

"Logan, please, just--stop."

"I don't--I don't understand," he says, and he gives her a look that makes her feel like she's kicked a puppy.

She bites her lip against the pain in his eyes, the sick twist of heartache in her chest. "Yeah," she says. "That's kinda the problem." She doesn't give him a chance to reply, to defend himself, to make it hurt worse. She just gets on her bike and goes.

*

She's not surprised when Alec sits down beside her; she'd made him as soon as she'd left Terminal City, doesn't think he was even trying to hide this time, and it's not like she hasn't done the same for him when he goes to meet his shadier contacts.

"I come here to be alone," she says.

"So, no different from anywhere else then, huh?" He nudges her shoulder and then leans away, like he's expecting her to hit him.

She shrugs. "Shut up, Alec."

"We're born alone and we die alone," he continues.

"You're not helping."

It's his turn to shrug; she feels the warmth and movement of his shoulder against hers. "It's the truth. It's how they made us."

She turns, grabs him, pulls him in for a hard, desperate kiss. His mouth is warm and soft and he tastes of heat and coffee. His tongue curls around hers and he pushes her back onto the cold, wet metal, his hands coming up to stroke her shoulders, her throat, her face.

Both of them are breathing heavily when she pulls back and says, "This is a bad idea."

"Yeah," he says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world, and leans in to kiss her again.

She lets him.

His hands slide down her body, heat sparking in their wake, to hook behind her knees and draw them up around his hips. She gasps when he grinds down against her, tips her head back to stare up at the cloudy sky when his mouth leaves hers to lick down the length of her neck, nip at the notch between her collarbones.

She clings to his shoulders for a few seconds, feeling the shift and stretch of skin and muscle beneath his clothes as he moves, and then does a little exploring of her own, hands sliding up under his shirt to stroke down his back, overwhelmed by so much supple, touchable skin after so long without.

He's got her shirt hitched up and her bra pushed down, and she can feel the drizzle on her skin where his body doesn't block it, a sharp contrast to the way his mouth is hot and wet around one nipple, then the other. The touch of his mouth, his tongue, sends arcs of lightning right to her pussy, building on the sharp ache pulsing there.

She pushes up against him, desperate now, and for once he does what she tells him to, has her jeans unzipped and his fingers curling up inside her before she can say the words. She can't catch her breath, heat and need stealing it away from her as the whole world narrows down to the two of them thrusting against each other, the movement of his fingers in her cunt, his mouth on her throat. Even in this, though, she's alone, thrusting up against his hand, frantic for release and finding it when his fingers move the right way, like he already knows her better than she knows herself. Her body pulses with pleasure as she comes, and when it's over, it's not enough, not nearly enough. She wants to do it again, right now, and to take him with her when she does.

"Come on, Alec," she says, running her teeth over the sweat-sheened skin of his throat, hands shoving at his cargoes.

"Easy, Max," he mutters, gasping when she gets a hand around his dick, strokes the length of it, hard and heavy in her grip. He fumbles in his pocket and comes up with a condom, and she gives him a small, grateful smile for remembering when she would have forgotten.

He shifts her hips up so he can push deep inside her, and she moans at how good it feels, arching up to meet him when he thrusts. The metal is wet beneath them, and her boots slide a little before she gets traction, leverage. He rests his mouth against hers, breathes in when she breathes out, and she holds him close, snakes a hand between them to rub at her clit. There's nothing slow or gentle about the way he's fucking her, and she gives as good as she gets, scraping her nails down his back and tightening her cunt around him, his low, choked growls driving her crazy. She comes again, shuddering beneath him, drawing him in deeper.

He loses his rhythm, whispers, "Fuck, Max, fuck," against her throat as he comes, hips jerking hard up into her, and then collapses on top of her, a heavy, satisfied weight that shouldn't feel as good as it does.

They lie there for a few seconds, the ragged sound of their breathing loud in her ears, and then she shoves him off, feeling suffocated.

He rolls away, lands on his back with a dull thunk against the metal. "Max--"

"Don't, Alec. Just. Don't." She pulls her shirt down and her jeans up, and gets to her feet quickly. She's still a little shaky but nothing she can't handle, nothing she'll let him see.

She leaves him lying there on top of the Space Needle, speechless for once.

*

She avoids him for the next two days, which he makes easy by not leaving his apartment. She wonders if he's in there drinking, and forces herself not to think--not to _worry_\--about him. She buries her pager in a drawer and ignores Logan's calls, too. She knows she should feel something--guilty, sad, angry--but all she feels right now is lonely and confused.

Joshua asks her what's wrong, and she doesn't know what to say. Everything. Nothing. She can't even go back to the Space Needle to think, can't get what happened out of her head. She wants to call Cindy but doesn't want to answer her sharp questions or listen to her I told you sos, so she doesn't do that, either.

On the third day, she's down in the garage, working on her bike and trying to figure the whole mess out, because she can't keep avoiding Alec--they have a city to run--and she can't keep pretending nothing's wrong if he's not going to pretend with her. Sometimes, she feels like her bike is the only thing in her life she knows how to handle, the only thing that doesn't want her to be something she's not.

She sighs when she hears Alec behind her, not sure she's ready for this conversation, or the conclusions that she's come to. Not sure she'll ever be ready.

"Hey," he says, and when she looks up, he's fiddling with the instrument panel on his bike. "So I've been thinking."

"Me, too," she admits.

He lets out a small huff of laughter. "That can't be good."

"You were wrong, you know."

"Of course I was." He leans on his bike, folds his arms across his chest. "Which particular time is this?"

She glares at him. "The other day."

"You were the one who said it was a bad idea. I just agreed."

"That's not what I meant."

"So you're saying it was a good idea?"

She wants to believe that's hope in his voice, but she can't be sure she's not hearing what she wants to hear. "I'm saying--" She lets out an annoyed huff. "I'm so spun I'm not sure what I'm saying." Which is more than she'd normally admit, even to him. "I just--I'm so tired, Alec."

He laughs again, a bitter edge to it this time. "I know. You've been working hard." He holds out a hand, and she takes it, lets him pull her into his arms.

"We all have," she says. She leans against his chest, can hear his heart beat, feel his breath stir her hair. She closes her eyes, can't look at him when she speaks. "So okay, maybe we're born alone, and maybe we die alone, and I can't change that. But nothing says we have to be alone in between. Not anymore."

He's quiet for a long moment, and she thinks maybe she's misjudged, or maybe she's just wrong--she's never been good at this relationship shit, and he knows that as well as anyone. Her chest tightens, and she's about to shove her way out of his arms so she can get some air, when his hand cups her chin and tips her face up. "You could be right," he says, his mouth curving in a slow, teasing smile. "I think we might have to spend some time checking it out, though, putting it to the test."

The knot of fear in her chest eases and she finds herself able to breathe again. "You just want to get laid again."

"Aw, come on, Max. The sex was pretty awesome. Even you have to admit that."

She bites her lip and thinks about denying it. "It didn't suck."

"It's a good thing I have a thick skin and can take your brutal honesty. Some guys might not be into that."

She smacks his chest playfully. "Shut up."

"Make me." His words whisper across her lips, so close they're breathing the same air.

She can't help grinning up at him. "Okay." She cups his face and pulls him down to suck gently at his lower lip, then slips her tongue into his mouth.

He growls low in his throat and slides his hand around the nape of her neck, holding her close, but gently enough to let her pull away if she wants to.

She doesn't.

She still has to fix things with Logan, and her family is still under siege, but she thinks maybe, just maybe, they can make this work.

end

~*~


End file.
